


A Little More Time

by Albione



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: AU, Dark, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Major Character Injury, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 07:24:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15456252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albione/pseuds/Albione
Summary: Elio wishes there was more time before Oliver goes back to New York after Christmas. And then his wish is granted…





	A Little More Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts just after Elio and Oliver's conversation at Christmas when Oliver tells him he is going to marry. It goes in a different direction.  
> Andre' Aciman owns these characters, I have just borrowed them and will give them back as soon as possible, a bit worse for wear, as soon as I get them out of my head.

“I can’t”  
By next morning, things became officially chilly.  
A Aciman

He filled the house and there was no way to avoid him, if I wanted to avoid him that is. He had slipped away towards an unknown fiancée I did not know, a woman who’s existence I never imagined. There I was obsessing about Chiara while in the New World was an unknown threat to my need.

The chill between us was echoed outside in the crisp snow that covered the summer memories of paradise; the balcony door was closed physically and metaphorically.  
But still, I needed to be close to this iceberg, if he can’t I could. Always watching him and storing memories for the bleak future.

The day before he would leave I proposed a walk, it was sunny and I enjoy the cold with the sun, I wanted a memory of something good with him to take away when he would be gone forever, less that twenty-four hours to that moment. The minutes would slowly push the clock hands to the moment he would disappear into a car and over an ocean.  
“I would prefer not to” he replied; not “Later”; not “I can’t”.  
No, a new word to block me and crush the spark of hope that lived constantly within me.  
That new refusal was the drop that overflowed the dam within my soul and filled my being with the dark vile emotions I knew existed but tried to keep at bay; “I want to be good” was not just your mantra Oliver, if only you knew.

Before dinner we were all spread out within the villa; I was transcribing, father was in his study, mother helping Mafalda and Oliver upstairs packing. I heard the clock in the sitting room counting out the seconds till he would leave me forever, the hands moving and denying me more time, when mother called out dinner was ready.  
As I walked into the dining room with father there was a terrible noise from the staircase, as though a wall of the building had collapsed upon itself.  
We ran towards the source of the noise and the silence that followed and there was Oliver, crumpled at the bottom of the stairs; the strange positioning of his limbs was that of a broken statue, a god torn to pieces by a mob of Christians. Only the small line of blood from his lips gave colour to the tableaux.  
The screams, father asking all not to move him, mother's voice on the phone for an ambulance; I took it all in rooted in the place I first saw him, unable to express any emotion. Shock they all thought.

We followed the ambulance in the car, the snow made the journey slow, I just saw ahead the blue lights and heard the siren whine muffled in our closed car; mother was crying and father’s hands clasped the steering wheel so tightly I thought it would break. They loved him dearly I though, probably more than I had ever loved him; after all I knew that it was not love that bound me to Oliver, it was many things, but nothing as simple as love.

The whiteness of the hospital and the smell of disinfectant were the stage for this new Oliver lying in bed, he looked so small and young surrounded by machines; if I was to lose him I needed to memorise this version so I volunteered to stay with him while my parents talked to the doctors and phoned his family to give the terrible news.  
The day when he was supposed to leave passed without anybody noticing, the passage of time was not my enemy any longer here where clocks were silent.

Spinal fracture in the lumbar area, possibility of paraplegia, concussion, we need to see when he is awake; all these words swam in front of me, but I felt as though I was under water so I could only see the shape of the words, not hear them. I would grasp the meaning later, there was time, now there was time.

His parents arrived a couple of days later; they looked as a caricature of Americans, out of place and out of step. Thin lipped and angry in their movements and words; I wondered how from such loins such a god was begotten.  
Behind them a blond young woman, Oliver fiancée. She was pretty in a conventional manner, there was no softness in the curves, too much exercise, her teeth were to perfect and even crying there was no real unbridled raw emotion. He could have had Chiara instead I though, earthly Chiara with soft curves and a crooked smile; my cousin so that he would be tied with my DNA strands every time he filled her. 

He woke up when we were all in the room and I liked to think that my face was the first one he focused on; “Give him space and time” the doctor said pushing us all out of the room and letting a few at a time in again.  
His parents, his fiancée, my parents; I was the last, the silent and forgotten Elio, but the end is a beginning, the last scene is the one that sears into the memory at the end of the show.  
He smiled at me, a frightened shy smile; he could not quite talk yet so I just smiled back at him convening all I felt, that this new Oliver was just as dear to me as all the previous ones and I slightly brushed his hand.

My father had organised transferring him to Milan, so that we could be near him; it was impossible for him to go back to the States at the moment; his parents agreed, relived not having to take decisions, Oliver fiancée just sobbed. I had time, again more time.

I went back to school and every afternoon I rushed to the hospital waiting for him to be discharged; we had prepared my room in the flat for him, it was large and near the bathroom. He would recuperate there till he could decide what to do.  
Lumbar paraplegia was confirmed, the wheelchair bought and Oliver crushed.  
He would just lie in my bed for whole days, his blue eyes slowly ebbing of life. I did everything for him, I dressed him, emptied his leg bag, took him to the bathroom, washed him; every action I treated it as a ritual of my religion, I adored him, I was not going to forsake this fallen god.

I heard his phone call to his fiancée “Please you cannot wait for me, you deserve better, I am but half a man, I cannot give you anything!”  
The rawness in his tone pierced my heart, but I earned time, so much more time than I ever thought.  
His conversations with his parents were more formal, dry details on how he was doing and “I do not know what I am going to do, I am on a wheelchair, do you realise that?”  
The ephemeral ties between them were shredding without regret.

My parents embraced him with care and love, giving him time and space and reassuring him. I knew that they loved him as the son they never had and would have wanted. It did not upset me, he was better than me; I also wanted him how could I resent him?  
“You are too good to loose Oliver; Columbia is waiting for your return. I have spoken to the dean, whenever you are ready there is a position for you.” My father kept telling him.  
He just nodded silently; he never expected to be the disabled professor that students felt sorry for.

As summer arrived again I finished school; the final exams just confirmed the high grades I had always maintained. I was ready for the adult world, I knew any university I chose would have me; I had worked hard for such a possibility.  
Back at the villa we adapted a ground floor room for Oliver; I made sure that the furniture from my bedroom furnished it.  
I remained next to him, no swimming in the pool or tennis games, just playing the piano for him and reading by his side; paradise.

Vimini would often visit, her presence soothed him; they both had life-altering conditions, but while her goalpost was known and looming, he did not know how to face all the time remaining.  
Sometimes I thought she looked at me in a quizzical manner, as though I was a fragment in a puzzle she could not find a place for me; I smiled at her and asked her what she was reading.

The days passed timelessly, and, slowly, a new Oliver emerged from the cocoon of despair; a featherless chick so frail that I was afraid to touch even with my fingertips.  
I watched him grow stronger and memorised all the new aspects overwriting the old Oliver memories; they were no use, I needed to concentrate on this new man I adored. He started looking after himself and I felt slightly cheated.

One day, as I passed a damp cool flannel over his naked body, I saw his cock tremble, the first time I had such a vision since the end of the previous summer; I did not care if it was caused by my touch or the feeling of the fabric, the return of an old friend is a joyous occasion in any circumstance.  
I looked up at him, a question in my expression that he read immediately; he gave a shy and sad nod and I took him in my mouth.  
He groaned ever so slightly as he was afraid of sensations he had forgotten or thought would never return. I wondered how much he could feel as he came into my mouth; there was little of him to taste.  
But we had crossed the Rubicon and could forge a new identity of us. He muttered “Oliver” into my curls; “Elio, Elio, Elio” was my reply straight into his ear.  
The look of relief he gave me strengthened my resolve about my future decisions.  
We slowly discovered new ways to take and give pleasure to each other; each discovery was a first time that I added to the score of first times with Oliver. 

We had no guests this summer so that Oliver could have the space for himself, build his new identity. At dinner I told all that I was thinking of enrolling at Columbia. “Do you mind Oliver?” I could not help myself from asking.  
“I am happy of your decision” he replied, and, God help me, he was.  
My parents, unaware of my coded statements, were delighted, and we discussed the logistics. I was silently determined to be by his side, and the way he clasped my hand I knew he needed me as I had always needed him before I knew he existed. We had time to prepare for this new life.

Later in his room we kissed and as he ran his hands through my hair he looked at me as I was a treasure.  
“Elio, you are so young, I am half a man, and I cannot tie you to me. It would be cruel, you are giving up so much to stay beside me.”  
I did not need the re-heated arguments he had used with Oliver fiancée, the cold and cutting expression of my eyes stopped him; his eyes widened as remembering the first time he saw such an expression from me.  
“I would love you to be with me forever Elio, but it is cruel, I can’t” he muttered.  
“I can, and I will!” I leaned over him and put my arms around his head. “I adore you Oliver, I am old enough to realise such a connection as ours happens once in a life time; we have the stars Oliver, and I shall be next to you because you are better than me and you are more myself than I am.”  
He hugged me in gratitude, desperation and love. It was the answer I was seeking since last summer. All the time for us not just two weeks that flew as seconds.

As I closed the door after settling him onto the bed for an afternoon rest I ran my fingers idly over the bowl of potpourri placed on the chest in the corridor. The small squashed pine cone, slightly covered by faded petals, was out of place; a forgotten Christmas decoration.  
But it was the easiest place for me to hide it that night and I liked to keep it there as an offering to the villa.

I am learning everything of the new Oliver as I had memorised everything of the old Oliver. The way he used to say “later”, his expressions and movements.  
Especially how he used to run down the stairs always placing his left foot on the edge of the top step, right next to the wall where the chandelier threw a shadow.  
He never looked.  
I had all the time in the world now, all the time for us, not just an extra day or month I had wished for last Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> I can assure you all that I am ok and apart not being able to sleep well for the heat, I am in a good place. Sorry if it is such a dark story... Comments are much appreciated, even those that are asking me "What on earth did I read?"  
> "I would prefer not to" is what Bartleby in the Scrivener by Melville always said, slowly undoing his life and this makes Elio snap.  
> The idea for this short story came when I was writing a chapter for Coda, where Oliver and Elio confess their darkest thoughts to each other. In the book Elio fantasies about crippling Oliver so he could know where he went and keep him in the villa forever.


End file.
